Saturday, October 15, 2005

Size Transitions in Blog Rings

Hi everyone! I just finished reading the Alban Institute's Size Transitions in Churches. Basic premise--size transitions require congregations to change ways of organizing their common life. Does the same thing apply to blog rings? With 80+ members, perhaps we need to consider how these daily round-ups can best serve the needs of this much expanded ring!

Problem: Even if the rounder-upper spends only 30-60 seconds scanning each blog, it's still a time consuming job. Then there is the problem of deciding which of the current blogs are round-up worthy on that particular day.

Are we happy with brief and random? Or do we want to reorganize so that Monday's round-up is for blogs beginning with A-D, Tuesday E-H, etc? Or am I way overthinking this? How do the rest of the rounder-uppers feel about this? What about the rest of you?

28 comments:

I agree that the job has grown beyond what's feasible. The last couple of times I've just basically "randomed" several times to see what comes up, but that misses a lot of people.

It's a shame that when you click "List" that it doesn't display blogs in order of which have been updated most recently. Is there an easy way for the average person to view this information? Because that would pretty much obviate the need for anyone to comb through the blogs.

I also like the alpha idea, although maybe a larger range, perhaps about 15-20 per day that are combed through. That way we'd get through the whole rotation faster (good for those folks who post multiple times per week). (The question would be how people would know where the previous "comber" left off... I guess they could just look at the previous entry!)

Then, if other people had something they really wanted people to check out, either on their own or someone else's blog, they could post that in comments.

Could you recruit a few extra eyes? If I knew that it was, survey these (a reasonable portion) on this day, I could probably offer myself up to the task. Maybe with two round-uppers for the day, the task would be more managable for both.

[Side note: if anyone has advice on CPE, that was my latest post, so hop on over to my blog.]

BLogRoll does have a function to show which blogs have been updated within a set period of time (you can set the period and tell it what sort of a marker to put beside the blog name). It seems to be semi-reliable in my experience.

I think it can be set to list them in order of update as well but can't remember for sure.

Otherwise I think the alphabetical system may work best. PCIT is right, to scan all the blogs and comment on them is not tenable.

I'm the Blog Roll manager, and I will go fix it so that it reflects updates. I'll use the 12-hour span. If that doesn't seem to suit us, I'll fiddle with it again. Blogrolling keeps track of XML feeds, so I guess a blog will need one of those to be noted as "updated."There are, of course, other uses for this blog. The blogger of the day could pose a discussion question, for instance. I'm thinking I'll keep trying to do a Friday Five of some sort. But, I do agree updating has become onerous.One thing reverend mommy has been good about doing is plugging new members, and perhaps we can be more intentional about that. Perhaps Thursday (rev mommy's day) could be new member round-up?

Reverend mommy is not the only one from whom I've heard a favorable report on Bloglines. I use NetNewsWire (I'm a Mac person) to check blogs-- and it's very good about checking RSS, XML and Atom feeds. Adding blogs is easy, and checking even easier.

At the same time, the idea of the alpha approach makes the tidy little organizational side of my brain happy...

I think it's important to welcome new RevGals. I always like checking out their blogs :)

but it's been fun too to see the different ways you have all approached this. I've enjoyed the themes, I've enjoyed the randomness, I've enjoyed seeing what caught your eye. and seeing what I missed

It would be nice to know more about members - how they got onto the blog roll - etc - but maybe a bloggers profile is down the road still. I wouldn't mind helping put some questions together or something. I could also help read some blogs and do a quick skirt around ... probably Mondays or Tuesdays would be best for me.

love the friday five though it gave so much stress - because every time I hit send my blog said I couldn't send it. I never figured it out.

I like the randomness of the round-ups. But maybe we all ought to be more mindful of coming and adding comments to the round-up, pointing out posts we've seen that everyone simply must read ....or I suppose we could link to each other more ....

Or if the sidebar listed the emails of the bloggers responsible for each round-up, then the rest of us could email them when we read a blog that ought to be mentioned. Would that make things harder or easier?

I do like the idea of being able to use the list on this sidebar that tells which blogs have been updated since there are some of us who post every day and some who post only once in a while.

I do think that as the commmunity gets bigger, this particular site will become more important. Sort of our meeting place.

Believe it or not, I am such a Luddite (not out of technophobia, mind you, but out of busyness and an extremely short attention span) that I don't even know that "site feeds," etc. are. (Any tutorials appreciated, so I don't feel quite as dense.) I'm always rather surprised that I can post pictures on my blog: "Wow! It's magic!";-) (I'm also easily amused.)

Anyhow...I too experience a real frustration not being able to always read everyone's blogs. (Which I try to do...if I've not yet posted on your blog it doesn't mean that I don't read it or don't read it a lot...I'm lurking.) Low-techie that I am, I thought that the alpha suggestion sounded workable.

And I like that I log on this morning and the blogroll has "updated" beside the blogs that have updated. That alone should make life easier. That way, I will only have to go to the blogs that have updated.

Nice.

The book (hopefully) goes to the publisher Wednesday. Ready for purchase (Lord willing and crick don't rise) on a week from Monday. Say a prayer and keep those fingers crossed....

I just got hooked up with bloglines. Oh my, it is a L.I.T. (Life Improving Thing). And journalscape seems to work just peachy with it.

Let's keep introducing new members, blogger profiles would be cool, and I think it's a good idea to have the people who are the designated "combers" listed somewhere here along with their specific day, just so people know.

Now that the blogroll lists updates, can we see if that makes the "combing" job easier? If it's still cumbersome we can divide the list alphabetically.

And people are welcome to post quizzes and memes to get people talking too. I like those. (In fact I have an idea for one tomorrow!)

Oh, will smama, your nickname is still my favorite.If you have a blog that doesn't seem to show updates, say a Typepad or journalscape blog, here is another option for being sure you are updated at Blogrolling. First, go here:http://www.blogrolling.com/ping.phtmlThere you fill out a little form with your blog title and URL, then you click on "ping." I'm trying it and will let you know the results.